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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Patrick Barkham

Council set to drop Essex wildlife site from housing plan after eight-year fight

Essex Colchester Buglife Natural England
Martin Pugh holding binoculars on a country path with tree branches overhead
Martin Pugh, of Friends of Middlewick, at the ranges last August. Photograph: Teri Pengilley/The Observer

A council is proposing to remove the second-best place for nightingales in the UK from its local plan for 1,000 new homes, in a win for community campaigners and environmentalists.

Middlewick Ranges, a former Ministry of Defence firing range on the southern edge of Colchester, is set to be dropped from the city council’s allocated housing sites after councillors heeded a growing array of ecological evidence highlighting its national importance for nature.

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